With student unions synonymous with violence, indiscipline and muscle power in the public mind, unsurprisingly Uttar Pradesh chief minister has imposed a ban on student union elections in the state with other states likely to follow suit. Puja Awasthi examines the pros and cons of student unionism in contemporary India

Although they have shaped some of the country’s most prominent political leaders who have changed tides of public opinion and shaped the destiny of the nation, India’s college and university unions seem to have lost their status and elan and are widely regarded as nuisances rather than training grounds of national and state leaders. Contemporary political leaders including Salman Khurshid (Congress), Prakash Karat (CPI-M), Sitaram Yechury (CPI-M), Arun Jaitley (BJP) and Digvijay Singh (Samta Party) learnt their politics in college and university student unions - once institutions brimming with idealism, and innovative ideas for social and economic change. But today in the public mind they are synonymous with violence, indiscipline, and muscle power. College campuses in pre-independence and post-independence India (right upto the 1980s) were testing grounds of idealistic leaders, political causes and social campaigns. Today student union leaders make newspaper headlines for anti-social activities such as assaults on vice-chancellors, rioting and murder of rival students, gun-running and assorted criminal activities.

For instance in November last year, five students were seriously injured following clashes during a non-political debate on the existence of Lord Rama in the run-up to student union elections at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi. Unsurprisingly shortly after she was appointed chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, following the Bahujan Samaj Party’s runaway victory in the assembly election of April 2006, Mayawati issued a diktat banning student union elections in the state to “improve the educational atmosphere in universities and colleges”. On the same day in the Supreme Court of India, Justice Arijit Pasayat wryly observed that universities and colleges are infested with “part time students and full time leaders” and that it would perhaps be fitting to makehooliganism and booth capturing part of their syllabuses.

 Indeed during the past three decades student unionism in India has travelled a long way from the ideals that had shaped them in the early years of the 20th century leading to India’s freedom movement. As far back as 1818, social reformer Raja Ram Mohan Roy enlisted the help of students when he launched his anti sati movement across the country. Since then Indian history texts have lauded the role of the students community in socio-religious, political and reform movements. For instance social reformer Ishwarchand Vidyasagar’s campaign for widow remarriage and female education (1840s), the Theosophical Movement for universal brotherhood launched in 1882, and the campaign to boycott foreign goods that morphed into the Swadeshi movement of the early 20th century, drew heavily on the idealism and energy of students.

Likewise when Mahatma Gandhi returned from South Africa in 1915, he roped in the idealistic students’ community to revolt against British imperialism. In 1920 more than 90,000 students dropped out of schools and colleges to join the freedom struggle. Later in the Quit India movement of 1942, students were in the forefront of anti-government processions, distribution of illegal newssheets and served as couriers of underground networks, risking their careers and often their lives.

The role of students as standard bearers of just causes spilled over to post-independent India. In 1959, students of Lucknow University (LU) launched an agitation against corruption and casteism striking roots in the university and forced the state government to order an inquiry. In the years 1968-1971 students in West Bengal rallied to demand the release of Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rehman from prison in Pakistan and mobilised global opinion in favour of an independent Bangladesh. Simultaneously when a powerful and idealistic ultra Left- inspired revolt broke out in West Bengal’s Naxalbari district to demolish bourgeois institutions, the students community rallied enthusiastically around the cause. 

Subsequently the 1970s were the golden years of student politics in India. Jai Prakash Narayan’s crusade against corruption and Congress party misrule (1974-75) and Gujarat’s Nav Nirman (total reinvention) agitation (1974), had students as their standard bearers. And in 1975 when prime minister Indira Gandhi declared independent India’s first internal Emergency, jailed opposition leaders and imposed press censorship, students spilled into the streets to protest and several of them were imprisoned. BJP spokesperson Arun Jaitley, MP, who was then the president of the Delhi University Students Union was jailed for organising the first of the few protests against the Emergency.

Like Jaitley, several political leaders occupying centre stage in Indian politics today, cut their teeth as student union leaders during the Emergency. Among them: Union railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav as president of the Patna University Students Union; Samata Party leader Digvijay Singh; CPI-M top brass Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury who were presidents of the JNU students union in the 1970s. “I recall how Jaiprakash Narayan used to visit colleges and talk to students. He explained to us the meaning of democracy,” recalls Yadav who was inspired by the JP movement to enter full-time politics.

 However from those lofty heights, in the past three decades student unionism has descended sharply into violence, corruption and lawlessness. In August 1981, about 300 students of Delhi’s Shyam Lal College hijacked several public buses and drove into Dayal Singh College to avenge the beating up of a student union hopeful. In September 2006, H.S. Sabharwal, a professor in Madhav College, Ujjain, was beaten to death after he proposed postponement of student union elections. Earlier that year students of Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia University went on the rampage to protest the admission process. Some months later V.S. Sreedhara, professor of English at Bangalore’s Vijaya College, was beaten up by student union members for harbouring sympathy for the Naxalite movement. In August 2006 Lucknow University witnessed a spate of pre-election violence when students demanding the release of an arrested election aspirant, clashed with the local police. In September 2007, it was the turn of students of Aligarh Muslim University to vandalise staff rooms and offices after an engineering student was murdered on campus.

 Given the continuous descent of student unions across the country into violence, intimidation and thuggery, it’s hardly surprising that Ram Prakash Singh, former vice chancellor of Lucknow University, believes that the idealism and passion for greater causes which had hitherto infused student unions have all but evaporated. “Today’s student unions are dominated by crypto-criminals who have trans-formed them into businesses driven by extortion, contracts, kidnapping, coercion and dishonesty. Student union leaders are parasites who enjoy minimal support from the larger students community. Within institutions of higher education they tend to oppose every sensible attempt to reform and improve the education system, be it a hike in tuition fees or introduction of a semester system. Their objective is to serve their own nefarious ends,” he says. 

 Singh’s evident bitterness is understandable given that he spent most of his three-year term as vice-chancellor of the 76-year-old Lucknow University fighting a demoralising and often lonely battle against “hooligans and criminals masquerading as student leaders”. He was often abused, threatened, even locked in his office for insisting upon the rule of law and academic propriety on the sprawling Lucknow University (estb. 1922) campus. In December 2006, Singh announced a moratorium on student union elections, pending implementation of the recommendations of the J.M. Lyngdoh Committee set up by the Supreme Court to suggest ways and means to clean up India’s notorious college and university elections (see box p.71). But this pro tem initiative provoked strident protests and criticism from all political parties in the state, particularly the then chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav and his ruling Samajwadi Party (SP).

The general consensus of academic opinion is that such direct interference by political parties in student affairs is one of the prime causes of the degeneration of student unionism. While the Akhil Bharatiya Vidhyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and the Students Federation of India (SFI), the student wings of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Communist Party of India (Marxist) respectively, have been active on campuses throughout their existence, the last decade has witnessed direct participation by political parties in student union elections, converting college campuses into the new battlegrounds of political parties.

In the process, the nation’s irredeemably self-serving political parties have imported their worst practices into college campuses. So blatant is this intervention that contemporary student union elections are indistinguishable from the high-spending, blood and gore modus operandi of assembly and general elections. The sloganeering and campaigning in the recently concluded Delhi University Students Union elections were almost akin to the general elections with the money and muscle power of candidates on full display.

“The mafiasisation of student unions is a direct result of political parties actively participating in elections on college campuses. All negatives flow from this. Student leaders receive full patronage from their affiliating political party and become mirror images of their parent political parties. At university, students must devote their time to study and grasping macro-level socio-economic issues, not petty politicking,” says Bhanoji Rao, the Chennai-based governing board member of GITAM University, Visakhapatnam and former World Bank economist, who taught for 27 years at the National University of Singapore where Indian-style campus politics is unthinkable. 

 Nevertheless politicians who learned their first lessons in politics on college campuses believe there is a strong case for established political party leaders to mentor student leaders and for students to learn the ropes and intricacies of the politician’s craft. Arvind Singh Gope, a former minister in the Mulayam Singh Yadav government who started his political career as a student leader in Lucknow University, offers his own example as the good that can flow from student unionism. “In a developing, democratic country such as ours, institutions of higher education have to serve higher social goals. One of the most important of these is to prepare young adults to assume societal leadership roles. At age 18, if people are ready to vote, why aren’t they ready to shoulder political and civic responsibilities? Students’ evolution from managing their colleges and universities to governing the state and country is natural and socially desirable progress for the country’s future leaders and politicians,” says Gope. 

However Gope’s depiction of student politics as idealistic, peaceful and issue-focused is far removed from the ground realities in the great majority of India’s 352 universities and 18,000 colleges. In particular the academic reputation of Lucknow University is in tatters following continuous campus violence triggered by gun-totting student leaders during the past two decades. For instance in the student union elections of October 2004, the major candidates had nine criminal cases pending against them for a range of offences including extortion and attempted murder. One of them, Ram Singh Rana, who was duly elected general secretary, has four criminal cases filed against him. True to his reputation, during the campaign Rana threatened to gun down a university provost if he failed to provide rooms, food and liquor to his supporters.

Sarvesh Pratap Singh, head of the department of modern Indian history at Kanpur’s Christ Church College (estb. 1876), believes that the descent of student politics into a vortex of hooliganism and violence is closely linked to the deterioration of academic standards in Uttar Pradesh’s 13 universities and 242 government and government aided colleges. Lax admission standards, over-subsidisation of tuition fees, dumbing down of academic standards, rampant exams malpractice, the declining influence of campus socio-cultural organisations and refined debating societies have attracted students to mainstream-style politics.

“Ideally student unions should address academic upgradation and student facilitation issues and perhaps larger social causes. During the pre-independence years students were united by the goal of freeing the country from British rule. Post independence the clamour has been for tuition subsidies, watering down admission requirements, reservations and the like. Protesting for better infrastructure, well-equipped libraries and improving the quality of education delivered in higher education has never been on the agenda of student leaders,” rues Singh.

S.Z.H. Jafri, head of Delhi University’s history department agrees. “Since the start of the new millennium when capitalism became all pervasive, the other ‘isms’ of yesteryear have fallen and vanished not only from campuses, but from society. Globalisation and the IT revolution have changed youth priorities in favour of consumption and materialism. It will require a lot of innovation and hard sell to set new ideals for today’s young generation. But as a first step, universities must mandate compulsory classroom attendance to establish the primacy of academics and co-curricular activities in student lives. They must also encourage deep research so that students pursue higher studies with a purpose and set higher goals for themselves.”

Fortunately there seems to be some awareness – even if belated - within the students’ community that upgradation and contemporisation of university curriculums should be at the top of their reform agenda, rather than unrelated political causes. A case in point is West Bengal’s high-profile, 191-year-old Presidency College where students are fighting back against the CPI-M backed Students Federation of India (SFI), well known for its brand of militant student unionism.

Since 2002, a broad coalition of anti-SFI students gathered under the banner of the Independent Consolidation (IC) has been winning students union elections in Presidency. Much to the frustration of the SFI and CPM commissars in Alimuddin Street (headquarters of the Communist Party of India-Marxist), IC has been continuously besting SFI on the simple promise of doing all it takes to “maintain and improve academic standards”. 

Down south where academic education tends to be regarded more seriously, aggressive politicised student unionism is rare. For instance in the southern state of Karnataka (pop. 57 million) a modification of the Karnataka State University (KSU) Act, 1986 banned students unions. Subsequently, though the KSU Act 2000 permitted elected student unions subject to official permission, college managements have seldom granted permission, citing political interference in pre and post student union elections. Though some colleges do have unions and elections, they are mostly apolitical cultural and sports promotion organisations committed to student welfare activities (i.e continued subsidisation of higher education).

Likewise in neighbouring Tamil Nadu (pop. 60 million), the student movement which peaked in the sixties and seventies in the wake of the anti-Hindi language agitation, has lost much of its steam. Most Chennai colleges have proscribed direct elections to student unions. However student leaders haven’t severed all political connections and during assembly elections, student wings of the DMK (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam), AIADMK (All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) and the MDMK (Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) mobilise students for vote canvassing or other election duties.

The Congress also uses its student wing, the National Students Union of India (NSUI), to mobilise the student community for election duties, though its support base is largely restricted to the national capital region (Delhi state). The Bhartiya Janata Party and the Left parties have better organised students’ wings in the Akhil Bharti Vidyarthi Parishad, the Students Federation of India and the All India Students Federation, while the large floating mass of politically inclined students have been harvested by regional parties such as the Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh and the Akali Dal in Punjab.

With student leaders increasingly finding succour and inspiration in the rapidly multiplying regional political parties, student politics is being slowly poisoned by narrow linguistic and chauvinistic ideologies. The young lumpens of Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena who recently ran amok in the streets of Mumbai beating up taxi drivers and hawkers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, and Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s use of young Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) members to deepen Gujarat’s communal divide, are chilling examples of the regionalisation of student politics.

Sadaf Aboli, president of the National Students Union of India, Mumbai, believes that though student unions are meant to be apolitical organisations, it’s difficult for them not to be influenced by political parties and leaders. “It is true that we function under the Congress president but we are not subservient to the party. Our main job is to fight for the rights of students countrywide. For guidance and advice on occasions we turn to the party president, but we try to remain a non-political, neutral body with no religious leanings. We like to believe that the NSUI pursues a truly inclusive, pluralist and a democratic agenda. But there is no denying that students do come under pressure from politicians to do their bidding,” he says.

Narendra Pani, former assistant editor of The Economic Times and currently professor in the School of Social Sciences at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, argues that the root of the problem is that instead of being apolitical, student unions are turning into feeder institutions for national political parties. “The case should never have been made for student unions to become training grounds for political leadership. The purpose of a students union is to encourage students to understand democracy, and it is a learning process towards understanding democratisation, ideologies and social responsibility. The fact that political leaders emerged from student unions is purely coincidental,” says Pani.

Meanwhile the steady degeneration of student unions and the urgent need for reform has attracted the attention of the Union human resource development ministry. In 2005 the ministry appointed a committee under the chairmanship of former chief election commissioner J.M. Lyngdoh to recommend ways and means to reform India’s incrementally violent and lawless university and college elections. The committee’s recommendations which were submitted to the ministry in July 2006, were endorsed by the Supreme Court of India in a landmark order delivered on September 22.

Under the order, a cap of Rs.5,000 has been imposed on poll expenses per candidate, and donations by way of money or printed material from political parties have been banned. Moreover as per the apex court order, candidates must be full-time enrolled students with at least 75 percent attendance and below 28 years of age. The order forbids students with criminal records and those against whom disciplinary action has been taken by the university from contesting student elections, and restricts the term of office bearers in student unions to one year (see box).

Expectedly the Lyngdoh Committee’s recommendations have evoked mixed response from political parties. Unexpectedly the right-wing BJP has whole-heartedly welcomed them, and has demanded elections as per the court guidelines in all colleges countrywide. On the other hand the Congress-affiliated National Students Union of India (NSUI) has expressed outrage about indirect elections to universities. As per the committee’s report, elected representatives of affiliated colleges will elect university presidents and office bearers.

Surprisingly the Samajwadi Party, which during its term of office in Uttar Pradesh (2003-07) brazenly supported student leaders with criminal records and turned a blind eye to campus violence, has recently come out in favour of the committee’s recommendations. “The Lyngdoh Committee recommendations are perfectly acceptable to us. We are in favour of an age limit, a cap on poll expenses and debarring students with criminal records from contesting elections. However these recommendations should not be used to settle political scores. As a party we remain committed to the youth and their welfare and this should not be misconstrued as patronage to anti-social elements,” says Akhilesh Singh Yadav, son and heir apparent of SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and member of parliament in his own right, who is heading the SP’s spirited movement for revival of student union polls in the state. (UP chief minister Mayawati banned student union elections in Uttar Pradesh’s 13 universities and 242 government colleges last September).

Nishi Pandey, dean of students’ welfare, Lucknow University, who received a death threat from the SP supported Ram Singh Rana in the 2005 student union elections, believes there is a case for holding student union elections. “We need student unions. University managements need to encourage dissent though students must know clearly what forms those disagreements must take. But there cannot be a one-size fits all model for student unions. Each university must decide for itself based on the socio-political ethos of the state in which it is located,” she says.

Swapan Dasgupta, the well-known St. Stephen’s College, Delhi and School of Oriental and African Studies, London educated, Delhi-based senior journalist and columnist adds: “All said and done, universities and campuses should be labs for testing ideologies, germinating ideas and theatres for practice of debate and democracy. Student unions which stimulate such activities need to be preserved and encouraged. Students who elect office bearers of their unions need to do so on the basis of capability to keep hooligans out. Positive activism on campuses is good for society.”

Quite clearly India’s student union movement is poised indecisively at the crossroads. The country’s mere 10 million students in tertiary education constitute a privileged (only 8 percent of youth in the age group 17-24 are admitted into India’s highly subsidised 352 universities and 18,000 colleges) and mature constituency within the body politic. As such they need to own up their responsibilities to society and recapture their pre-independence era spearhead role in national development, rather than behave like juvenile delinquents given to adopting the worst practices of mainstream politics.

“We need debate, democratic platforms and elections to nurture and foster natural student leadership, but without the money power of political parties. FM radio, television, the internet can be used instead and student power needs to be institutionalised in a positive manner,” says Dr. Ashis Nandy, the well-known Delhi-based sociologist and senior fellow at the Centre for Study of Developing Societies.

Student unions undoubtedly have a major role to play in shaping and moulding the opinion of the vitally important students community. But to discharge this role effectively they need to engage with major issues in education -expanding higher education and addressing the issue of over-subsidisation of higher education; reforming syllabuses and curriculums; abolition of hooliganism and violence from academic campuses; and actively helping local communities through extension services. At the same time they also need to be involved with larger issues of social justice and empowering the great majority eking out miserable lives on less than Rs.20 per day. 

Are India’s student unions capable of rising to the demands of 21st century India? To a greater extent than is generally believed, the country’s future depends on it.

With Autar Nehru (Delhi); Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai) & Gaver Chatterjee (Mumbai)